Welcome to Wabash College’s blog about literature and theory! Prof. Agata Szczeszak-Brewer’s Literary and Cultural Theory students explore the purpose of literature, learn about different critical approaches to literature, use these theories to construct arguments about texts, and develop an awareness of their cultural resources.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Karintha

This poem clearly shows how fragile love, beauty, and sex are. Karintha had such unrivaled beauty that even when she was a little girl, men wanted to be young again for her. "The soul of her was a growing thing ripened too soon," and she lost her virginity too quickly, married numerous times, and had a child, and it was all jeopardized. Sex is a big issue here, for after Karintha had sex, all the men looked at her differently. It was as if her seeing her parents having sex was inevitable, for she tried it right after she saw them. This is unusual for most children, who would see sex and be fearful of it or confused by it. Karintha embraced it, probably due to all the men who wanted her when she was at a young age. This shows the dangers of beauty- men cannot resist their urge and women lose their innocence. Time is another theme of this story, for the men want to be young again and have to wait for her to grow up, just as Karintha grows older. Time never seems to be on our side, because nothing can ever stay the same through time or marvel us in the same way as once before, the same way that Karintha would never remain the untouchable angel that she was as a child. Time causes age so that perfect moments can never be the same. Lastly, there is the simile of her skin and dusk. At first, I thought the comparison was about the color and luminosity of her skin, brilliant glowing and full of different colors as the setting sun. But the end of the story gave me the impression that Karintha died. The last line is, "Goes down...," and the men "will die not having found out." Maybe Karintha was like the setting sun because she has unfathomable beauty but it is gone in only the briefest of moment, and then she dies and the sun goes down.